Nearly $10 million in grants awarded to neuroscience researchers across Canada

Brain disease diagnosis with medical doctor seeing Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) film diagnosing elderly ageing patient neurodegenerative illness problem for neurological medical treatment

The Weston Family Foundation, through its Weston Brain Institute, is awarding $9.8 million in funding to researchers through the Rapid Response, Transformational Research, Early Phase Clinical Trials, and Follow-on Funding programs.

These researchers are pursuing novel, high-risk, high-reward translational research in neurodegenerative diseases of aging at research institutions across Canada. The grants cover a wide range of research projects from prevention, to detection, to treatment.

Neurodegenerative diseases of aging are among the least understood and most undertreated diseases today, making them one of the greatest healthcare challenges of the 21st century. Worldwide, over 50 million people are believed to be living with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias. By 2050, rates could exceed 120 million.

With this new funding, the Foundation has now awarded more than $95 million through the Weston Brain Institute toward the goal of catalyzing and scaling science-based approaches to significantly improve the health and well-being of Canadians as they age.

About the Grants

The Rapid Response Program (up to $300,000) provides seed funding for novel, high-risk, high-reward, translational research that will accelerate the development of therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases of aging.

The Transformational Research Program (up to $1.5 million) supports transformative, high-risk, high-reward translational research projects on neurodegenerative diseases of aging.

The Follow-on Funding Program (up to $1.5 million) kick-starts the scaling of innovations, technologies and/or lifestyle approaches identified and validated in one of WBI’s proof-of-concept grant programs.

The Early Phase Clinical Trials Program (up to $1.5 million) provides funding support for clinical trials and clinical trial sub-studies with excellent preliminary data.

With this latest round of grants, 14 principal applicants and 89 team members—including international co-applicants and collaborators in Canada, the United States, Sweden and England—are being supported.